"Two-Eleven All Around" by Chris Offutt

From: Out of the Woods by Chris Offutt. Simon & Shuster, 1999.

When a self-described drunk is locked out of the house, he assumes his recovering-alcholic girlfriend has become fed up with him. After walking the streets of Casper, Wyoming for an hour, pondering the dismal state of his life, he decides to throw a chunk of rubble through a plate glass window to get the attention of a passing patrol car as well as that of his girlfriend, who listens obsessively to a police scanner.

A native of Kentucky currently teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Offutt's stories are terse, compelling, and marked by an unflinching bleak outlook.